TRUANT

picture borrowed from google images
Where I work the jobs come in thick and fast in December and after Christmas orders drop off to almost nothing for month or so. Yesterday I finished everything on my desk. So when I called in today and was told there was nothing new I told them I would see them tomorrow. I grabbed my cross-country skis and headed for the hills. This time I was not carrying my camera so I thoroughly enjoyed careening down the track and sliding through the trees. I had waxed my skis for temperatures below freezing, but I could tell things were warmer than that because I was getting extra distance and speed on the downhills. I was going pretty fast for someone so awkward. My eyes were dry and the cold air was flapping my hair against my face. Most of the time, the rides down ended with a ride up, so if I could keep my skis in the set tracks I was okay. However, there is this fast slope with a curve that always gets me. And it did again today. I left the groomed trail and made a spectacular face-plant in the fluffy snow. The powder was so deep I would have lost my poles if they had not been strapped on. No harm was done and there was no one there to laugh at me so I dusted myself off and continued on. I was on the return trip when I hit another down slope with a curve. I lost my footing and was heading for the soft snow when I saw the TREE. Somehow I threw myself back to the hard track, and, in a split second, did a warrior two, transitioned to a warrior one, became airborne for a moment and ended up in a wide-angle forward bend sliding down the track on my rear. When I finally came to a stop I looked back at the tree, took a deep cleansing breath, put my hands in prayer position and said thank-you for all those hours of yoga. <:D Namaste.

MOOSE ON THE LOOSE

We came home to find our copy of the local news scattered all over the yard by the wind. When I gathered it up, re-assembled and flattened it out, I found some real front page news. It seems a bull moose had wandered into a subdivision and caused quite a lot of excitement before he was tranquilized and put on a sled.

The neighbors turned out to help pull the sled to a trailer where conservation officers loaded him up and hauled him back to the wild.

This is not so unusual for our town. Moose occasionally meander up from the river during the night to find their return path blocked by houses and fences. Wildlife officers are called to escort the lost creature out of town. We watched one such escapade from our window as men on snowmobiles herded a long-legged moose through the neighbor’s garden. He left footprints the size of dinner plates where he stomped through their snow-covered flower beds.

Early one morning a few summers ago I was riding my bike through a nearby rural area and saw a young moose grazing in a farmer’s wheat field. I got a photo before he calmly stepped over a fence and hurried away.